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Privacy in the Woods?
Rorschach1 asks: "I work with a local Search and Rescue team, and for some time I've been thinking about the possibility of installing sensors at a few critical trail junctions in the local back country. The sensors would detect passing hikers and report timestamps to an Internet gateway in near real-time. When a hiker goes missing, this information could be very valuable in determining where search efforts should be directed.
However, I've spent enough time on Slashdot to know that whenever you start monitoring or tracking people and their activities, someone's going to get upset. So I'd like to hear from the tinfoil hat brigade - what are your objections to such a system, and how might your concerns be addressed?"
keep it anonymous and public.
:)
hand out some sort of tag to the hikers when they arrive. if the hiker wants it, they can carry it along. when they come within reach of a sensor, the tag gets a session id of sorts.
this way, you can track individual persons about the woods, but have no actual knowlegde of who they are, other then "some person".
when the hikers leave the area, they hand in the tag, which is reset and then given to someone else.
public disclosure in a system, which cannot expose individuals is a good thing
Just put a footpad in the area and let hikers know what its for. Thats much simpler than requiring them to wear something. When hiking past all they need to do is step on it in passing...or not.
So it turns that they already have a system like this... you are supposed to fill out a tag that you wire to your pack, and a carbon copy goes into the box that is sitting out.
Seems to work well enough, I question the need for a high-tech solution. If people want to be dumb, let 'em. Otherwise there is non-intrusive, low-tech, easy to use system already working.
The problem with the proposal is there is no user ibput so you don't know when to start worrying.